Dell XPS One 27 Review: The Premium All-in-One
by Dustin Sklavos on May 29, 2012 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Systems
- Dell
- Intel
- XPS
- Ivy Bridge
- Kepler
- all-in-one
- 600M
- NVIDIA
User Experience, Heat, and Power Consumption
Where I think Dell seems to have missed the boat with the XPS One (and the corresponding new Inspiron One 23 and Inspiron One 20) is in the thermal design. Aesthetically I find these all-in-ones to be very attractive (the Inspiron Ones look almost exactly like the XPS One, just smaller), and once again the minimal software bloat is greatly appreciated.
.jpg)
The problem with the XPS One, and potentially with the other new Inspiron all-in-ones, lies again in the cooling design. If you remember our review of the Inspiron One 2320, we found that while the processor was well cooled, the GPU and hard drive were essentially being toasted inside the chassis. 50C was way too high for a hard drive to be running at, while 90C was pushing the upper boundaries of the GPU's tolerance. That's why it's unfortunate that the XPS One's thermals aren't much better.
This time the situation is essentially reversed; the i7-3770S is roasting inside the XPS One under high load while the GT 640M is generally more comfortable (77C for any modern GPU really isn't bad at all). Unfortunately, neither HWMonitor nor AIDA64 could give me readings on the storage subsystem so you're really taking it based on faith.
We're really getting to the crux of the problem with all-in-ones, though. Heat management gets a lot more complicated when you're also dealing with the heat that the screen itself is throwing off. Given how much better mobile quad-cores have gotten, I have to wonder if the incremental drop to the i7-3770S was really enough in the XPS One and unfortunately the only other processor choice is the i5-3450S, which is still 65W. Where we need to be are the comparably priced i7-3770T and i5-3450T to take some of the stank off these thermals.
Part of the problem with a system running this hot, is that you'll notice that under sustained stress the system's fans are basically running at full bore, and when that load is removed it takes them a while to spin back down again. Having those fans running that high is brutal; while the system is quiet under idle, sustained load drives fan noise up to a punishing 47.7dB (measured about a foot away). An all-in-one running that loud is unacceptable, full stop.
_thumb.jpg)
_thumb.jpg)
_thumb.jpg)
_thumb.jpg)
_thumb.jpg)
_thumb.jpg)
Dell's thermal solution involves middling ventilation around the perimeter of the body (basically the recessed gap between the screen and the silver backplate), and while I don't envy their engineers the task of having to find a way to cool a beast like this, frankly they just haven't found the answer.
Being the biggest all-in-one we've tested, it should be unsurprising that the Dell XPS One 2710 is also the most power hungry. What's shocking is the difference in load consumption between the XPS One 2710 and TouchSmart 610. If we assume power saving technologies are kicking in (e.g. Optimus for the XPS One 2710), some of the ~10W difference in idle power is due to the larger monitor, but the always-on HD 5570 in the TouchSmart makes that a less than perfect comparison. Regardless, despite having a CPU with a TDP 30W lower than the TouchSmart 610's, the difference in load power consumption sees the XPS One 2710 is pulling fifty watts more than the TouchSmart. The GT 640M simply isn't that big of a power hog, and the difference between the two units should honestly fit in that reduced CPU TDP.
Or if you want a potentially better comparison, look at the Inspiron One, which also uses an NVIDIA GPU with Optimus and a 65W S-series CPU. There the difference at idle is 21W, and once again we're looking at 50W more power draw on the XPS One under load--or 30W more once we remove the extra power used by the 27" LCD.
While load power consumption isn't horrible, it's a lot higher than I expected. Given the cooling issues with the older Inspiron One 2320, it looks like Dell has simply swapped one problem for a different one. We've also seen evidence that Ivy Bridge runs hotter than Sandy Bridge, and that appears to be the case here; more performance in a smaller area often makes that happen. Unfortunately, the noise generated by the XPS One under load makes such high temperatures a real concern.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
69 Comments
View All Comments
jabber - Tuesday, May 29, 2012 - link
Ahhh crap. As I saw it as an All In One I would have thought Dell would have put in a touchscreen, I guess they have heard about whats round the corner?Forget it....
IKeelU - Tuesday, May 29, 2012 - link
Is it just me or is everyone jumping on the "One" bandwagon? This last month alone, I've seen ads for the HTC One (smartphone) and the Nikon 1 (camera), and here I'm reading about the Dell XPS/Inspiron One.Maybe marketing people should be given a dictionary and thesaurus when they graduate.
michael2k - Tuesday, May 29, 2012 - link
The interesting part is the supplied power information from Apple: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3559152W Idle, 365W Load, which is much, much higher than the numbers the Dell XPS 2710 posts. What are the thermals for the iMac?
Steelbom - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
They get hot -- although I don't think as hot as this system, but the fans don't move from 1000 RPM which is practically silent.guidryp - Tuesday, May 29, 2012 - link
Look up "Gorilla Arm Syndrome".Touch on desktops is simply an ergonomic no-no. A completely wasted gimmick that maybe a few suckers would buy, but nothing to base a product around, regardless of what MS is sticking in their OS.
frozentundra123456 - Tuesday, May 29, 2012 - link
I agree. Why would you want fingerprints, grease, etc. on a desktop monitor, not to mention that you have to sit and look at it really close. I could see touch on a laptop if you could eliminate the need to carry around a mouse, but not on the desktop.The all in ones seem to be popular in the big box stores, but they seem to force too many compromises to me. Run hot, cant replace/upgrade the monitor, relatively weak performance for the price. Basically all the disadvantages of a laptop without the portibility.
PubFiction - Tuesday, May 29, 2012 - link
Your guys are too closed minded. Many people touch monitors to show people things. No one said you had to get rid of the mouse, but having touch as an option opens up lots of possibilities for new uses.If you want to start getting all picky lets just point out the fact that all in one computers are a stupid idea in the first place. Why would you spend the money to put a nice large display in a computer that will need to be thrown out with the computer in 2-3 years when it is simply under powered?
But the fact is people buy them for various reasons.
Voo - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
Anyone trying to touch my 30" dells (just monitors) at work or at home would be thrown out of my office/home with broken arms. I mean who in their right mind would want fingerprints on their beautiful screens? My Galaxy S screen is already a huge mess, but at least it's fairly easy to get it reasonably clean.Now I can understand the use of a multitouch trackpad, that has real value (though a mouse and mouse gesture support is not too bad either) and much better ergonomics. But nobody in their right mind sits even close enough to their 30" monitor that they can easily touch it, so how's that going to work?
And yes I don't understand that either - my monitors have an extended warranty of 5 years and I expect them to last much longer than that (my last ones did). Good monitors are still hugely expensive, but at least they are fine for several upgrade cycles.
Penti - Tuesday, May 29, 2012 - link
Why wouldn't you just use the multitouch trackpad for any gestures? It's not like you need to see your input device. Just as nobody would think of putting the stick shift or semi-automatic gearshift on a touchscreen on the windscreen of your car for you to see. You need feedback but it's not like you get that by putting your whole arm/hand on a screen in front off you. If you have a really large screen it will probably be further away then an arms length any way. It's different on small devices and devices where you don't have to feed in data in some database or business software all day. Those kind of tasks wouldn't even work without keyboard shortcuts.All the other alternatives on phones are worse though, say a trackball where the convention just works totally differently. Or better yet make proper use of the keyboard. Apple do have their mind in the right track when they don't try to make OS X into an touchscreen OS. Microsoft has pretty much made Windows Runtime irrelevant and would be better of build on Windows CE kernels and a totally different native SDK. It's not like phones or ARM tablets will be able to run Win32 desktop apps any way.
You do need to control everything by the keyboard and trackpad on a desktop OS and it needs to come first. Even penable input is more important there, but at a desk you would use a Wacom tablet for the actual pen input.
philipma1957 - Tuesday, May 29, 2012 - link
dell 2 x 8 gb = max ramiMac 4 x 8 gb ram = 32gb ram
dell gt 640 gpu does not come close to iMac hd 6970m
dell uses half the power of the iMac
the dell is a nice apartment dweller all in one. tv dvr htpc
the iMac can be used for heavier work load.
one last thing about the dell why not the i7 3770t 45 watts vs 65 watts for the i7 3770s to me this is a real error. the machine is underpowered when you compare it to a loaded iMac. which would be good for an apartment dweller, having the 45 watt cpu would have been the way to go.